Help me pick a gfx card.

**Balaras** · 12-08-2005, 02:27 PM

Hi all,

My computer has a hard time breathing these day and I thought I'd take some of its stress by bying it a new gfx card. My problem however is that I'm hopelessly lost when it comes to hardware.

So what I seem to remember is that, in some of my older computers, I have had a reasonably smooth run with ASUS stuff. I have found a card that I think will do and is reasonably priced.
There's one thing, though, that really confuses me. The card (the shopping site labels it: ASUS V 9999GT/TD) is listed with support for the DirectX 9.0 api. There is on the same site a version of the card called Gamer Edition (ASUS V 9999 Gamer Edition) that supports both OpenGL and DirectX.

Unfortunattely the Gamer Edition does not support dual monitors, which is paramount, or I would just have run with that.

Can it really be that the first one does not include a OpenGL binding ?
Should I concern myself with this ?

Or perhaps some of you have recommendations and experiences with another card. It does not have to be the newest, says the wallet. It should on the other hand not have to need viagra just to get the fan spinning either.

Chees,
Balaras

**JSoftware** · 12-08-2005, 02:58 PM

if you need a new gfx then i would say that you should buy a 6800 or 6600
If you're gonna do this then please buy the gt or ultra version as the gain from normal to gt/ultra is huge to the price.

I have had bad experiences with 2 asus gfx's lately but i don't think that there is any significant difference in amount of hardwarefaults these days. I have a gigabyte r9600 pro now and i really like it but i consider to move to a 6800 ultra some day.

About 3d api's: i can't believe that there is no opengl support in the card you listed before.

www.shg.dk <- de har altid billige ting her!

Positive gfx experiences:
Gigabyte, still my favorite
MSI, pretty good
Leadtek, they are actually making pretty good cards!

do you need dual vga or dvi?

**Specis** · 12-08-2005, 05:55 PM

quite uncommon these days too to see a single head card,

But really its only a problem if you actually use multimonitor for gaming. if you dont and only use it for coding then its easy to pickup a simple cheap matrox pci card or something then your dual monitoring away again. doesnt have to be matrox, thats just what i use as my second card along with my dual head fx6200

I personally feel to much attention is focused on the highest end graphics cards these days, i feel at the prices they want its not actually worth it. Which is why i went for a 6200 instead of anything more powerful.

**Balaras** · 12-08-2005, 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by JSoftware

If you're gonna do this then please buy the gt or ultra version as the gain from normal to gt/ultra is huge to the price.

So what does gt and ultra mean? More speed or is there some components included that's not in the normal cards?

Originally Posted by JSoftware

www.shg.dk <- de har altid billige ting her!

Thanks for the tip.

Originally Posted by JSoftware

do you need dual vga or dvi?

I wouldn't really know

This is what kind of cable that is beeing used right? I suppose it's vga ?

Originally Posted by Specis

I personally feel to much attention is focused on the highest end graphics cards these days, i feel at the prices they want its not actually worth it. Which is why i went for a 6200 instead of anything more powerful.

Quite so. The onboards and 2d lowends have been fine for my needs, playing mostly crpgs and not beeing too much into first person stuff. So, I have never before bought a 3d graphic card. But, a job just finished, some money has come my way and I wants me som action. I bought a stack of games but only one ran :roll: (Sid Meyers: Pirates btw)

/Balaras

**JSoftware** · 12-08-2005, 08:16 PM

gt and ultra on nvidia cards means that you get extra bandwidth. faster ram and such. The actual data varies a bit.

vga = analog crt screen
dvi = digital flatscreen

usually on newer cards there's a connector bundled which can convert a dvi to vga so you have 2 vga outputs. two dvi's should be near to imposible to find if i'm correct about the previous statement

**Traveler** · 12-08-2005, 08:22 PM

I'd opt for the 6800gt too. I bought myself one a few months ago, and so far its the best of all the cards I've ever bought.

However since nvidia nor Ati haven't stopped working, I'd suggest you check out some of the newer cards as well. Before I made my decision I checked www.tomshardware.com for its benchmarks. Its a great site.

**Sly** · 13-08-2005, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by Balaras

Unfortunattely the Gamer Edition does not support dual monitors, which is paramount, or I would just have run with that.

The ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition does support dual displays. Just use the supplied DVI-to-VGA adaptor on the DVI output to have a second VGA display, or if you have a flat panel display that supports DVI, just use the DVI output directly.

Can it really be that the first one does not include a OpenGL binding ?
Should I concern myself with this ?

Both cards support DirectX and OpenGL. It is just the site you saw that omits to say it supports OpenGL. They will both use the same NVidia driver.

Or perhaps some of you have recommendations and experiences with another card. It does not have to be the newest, says the wallet. It should on the other hand not have to need viagra just to get the fan spinning either.

From the reviews I've read of the ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition, it sounds like a great card.